Getting this…..
For this
Let me take a moment here to depart from the usual rants about the end of television or the inevitability of new technology…
About a year ago, we listed our Manhattan apartment on a website called Homeexchange.com.
It doesn’t cost much to list. You put up a few photos and an explanation. The idea is that you swap your house for someone else’s.
There was a movie a few years ago in which this was the basic premise of the plot. Â It was called The Holiday
Kate Winslett played an unhappy English writer who swaps her UK cottage for Cameron Diaz’s Beverly Hills mansion. The story line is that in fact they swap more than just homes, but also lives, or part there of. Â This much of the movie is pretty much realistic. (The rest I am not so sure).
Last year we swapped our home for a farm in the Cotswolds in England. For a week we took care of the chickens, baby lambs (it was lambing season), their gun-schooled dog and their cattle. Â We had a great time.
Now, we’ve just confirmed our second swap. This time for a 16th Century stone house on the English coast. Â
They take your house, you take theirs. Â It costs nothing.
I am not here to advertise for Homeexchange, but for us it has turned out to be a great experience. One that I highly recommend. Â
Next year? The South of France.